Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com the message he sent you with (I knew he would send you).’
‘He told me to give you his compliments and to say that he
would never come again but to give you his compliments.’
‘His compliments? Was that what he said his own expres-
sion?’
‘Yes.’
‘Accidentally perhaps he made a mistake in the word,
perhaps he did not use the right word?’
‘No; he told me precisely to repeat that word. He begged
me two or three times not to forget to say so.’
Katerina Ivanovna flushed hotly.
‘Help me now, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Now I really need
your help. I’ll tell you what I think, and you must simply say
whether it’s right or not. Listen! If he had sent me his com-
pliments in passing, without insisting on your repeating the
words, without emphasising them, that would be the end of
everything! But if he particularly insisted on those words, if
he particularly told you not to forget to repeat them to me,
then perhaps he was in excitement, beside himself. He had
made his decision and was frightened at it. He wasn’t walk-
ing away from me with a resolute step, but leaping headlong.
The emphasis on that phrase may have been simply brava-
do.’
‘Yes, yes!’ cried Alyosha warmly. ‘I believe that is it.’
‘And, if so, he’s not altogether lost. I can still save him.
Stay! Did he not tell you anything about money — about
three thousand roubles?’
‘He did speak about it, and it’s that more than anything
that’s crushing him. He said he had lost his honour and that